Ep 24: USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives: 30 Years of Responding to Political Crises

The Aid Market Podcast

Brittany Brown, Acting Assistant to the Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization, joins Mike Shanley to discuss the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI). OTI has been an ongoing effort for 30 years, and Brittany shares some of their successes with working in other countries. Localization is a large aspect of the work that OTI is focused on, by working with local partners and change makers to ensure that everyone has a buy-in on the project a grant is funding. OTI partners with the National Security Council, State Department, and DOD in a variety of ways, and with someone from the OTI team on the Administration this year, they are seeing success with educating the government on impacts of certain decisions.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• [1:17] Brittany covers some of the key successes and lessons learned across 30 years of OTI.

• [4:00] Brittany shares an example of the OTI’s work in Libya.

• [6:30] Brittany shares about the work that has been done in Columbia.

• [9:55] How does OTI work with local partners and what lessons can they share with other parts of USAID to best implement localization agendas and engage local partners?

• [18:22] Brittany explains how OTI engages with the National Security Council.

• [18:22] How does OTI work together with the State Department and DOD?

• [20:50] What are some of the innovations and challenges that OTI has come up with?

• [23:00] Brittany shares what initiatives and strategies she is excited about looking forward to with OTI.

• [28:22] Brittany talks about how impactful it is when everyone works together on a project.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• [3:30] OTI goes to countries to create a collaborative model, where everyone has buy-in. It isn’t only the U.S. Government that determines what they need, instead it is the country requesting what they need, and then everyone working together to make that happen.

• [24:00] One of the reasons that OTI is an important organization is because they are limited and can be very targeted in the places they are engaging. They typically only have around 15 programs happening at any moment.

• [27:26] None of us are as smart as all of us thinking together. There are a lot of creative ways that can help get things done better and differently than before, and those ideas will come with everyone working together.

QUOTES:

• [5:00] “We started asking the displaced people, what would it take for you to return? What is it, what do you need to return to Sirte, and then we immediately started doing the things they were asking for. So that meant we were just restoring regular services. It meant just government services, it meant sewage and trash collection, it meant running water, access to running water, it meant schools actually had to be functioning. It meant healthcare systems had to be stood up. We had to start cleaning up graffiti and signage that was left over from the ISIS occupation to make people feel like they actually had a future for themselves and their kids” - Brittany Brown

• [12:44] “We don’t have the brilliant ideas. It’s actually the people who live in these communities and understand the local context, the local dynamics about what is happening, and it’s using systems that already exist in these countries.” - Brittany Brown

• [27:25] “I think government bureaucrats get a bad rap for not being innovative and creative in these different ways. Everytime I interact with anyone in this building at the state department, anywhere else, there are these big, brilliant change makers in government that are thinking about how we do things better. They also are very open to ideas from the outside.” - Brittany Brown

RESOURCES:

Aid Market Podcast

Aid Market Podcast YouTube

BIOGRAPHY:

Brittany Brown serves as Deputy Assistant Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization (CPS). She was appointed by the Biden-Harris Administration to also serve as the Director for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in CPS.

Prior to OTI, Brittany worked as the Chief of Staff at the International Crisis Group after more than a decade in the U.S. Government, working for a range of government agencies, including USAID, the U.S. Departments of Justice, State, and Defense, and both the Obama and Trump White Houses. She served on the staff of the National Security Council as the acting Senior Director for African Affairs under the Trump Administration, and as the National Security Council's Horn of Africa Director under President Obama.

Brittany began her government career as a Presidential Management Fellow with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Before joining the U.S. Government, she worked with juvenile detainees and children in the foster care system. She also managed a GED program for women awaiting trial at Chicago’s Cook County Jail.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in political science and sociology from DePaul University in Chicago and a Master of Arts in Public Policy and Administration from Northwestern University.